Jane Sloane Executive Director

Dear IWDA friends

Thank you so much for your support for IWDA. I’m thrilled to say that we’ve exceeded our target for the tax appeal, which is a huge relief given the downturn in donations during the last year. Such a positive outcome will help to support our programs for the next 12 months, which is cause to celebrate given that 2010 is our 25 year anniversary!

With 25 years of working with our Program Partners to create positive change for women and their communities we’re keen to sustain this work for as long as the need is there.

Last Friday we had a graduation for a group of girls who were part of our first Global Youth Impact program, a pilot of a new leadership program for girls in schools here in Australia aimed at building self esteem and confidence as well as awareness of critical issues facing girls and women in the Asia Pacific region.

A couple of the girls said that they had never thought it was possible to think about going to university and the program had made this thinking possible. Another girl said at the graduation that she had never really thought about human rights as being relevant to her life and now she sees things differently.

Still another wrote a song about what the program meant to her and she sang it on the night, while playing her guitar. So many of the girls, their families and their mentors (each was allocated a mentor during the program) spoke about the life-changing impact of this program. Imagine then the impact of the programs IWDA supports in the Asia Pacific region which are designed to give girls and women opportunities to have power in decision-making and to play an active leadership role; the potency of these programs in places such as the Thai Burma Border, Solomon Islands and East Timor in supporting girls and women who have so few chances to actively change and shape the course of their lives.

If we want these opportunities for our girls and young women in Australia, don’t we also wish the same opportunities for education, leadership and livelihoods for those girls and women in our region? Your support for IWDA’s work is an affirmation of this and we continue to take strength from your engagement and encouragement for our Program Partners and for our advocacy, policy influencing and public education in support of gender equity.

Thanks again for your partnership in working for transformative change for women and girls.

Warm regards

Jane

Executive Director
International Women’s Development Agency

“When women benefit, the whole community benefits.”